“Pavlok” Wristband Shocks You Into Forming Better Habits

Some are motivated by tempting carrots, others are motivated by a stick, or in the case of the Pavlok wristband, an electric shock. The Pavlok is the latest in a string of activity trackers, but comes with a slightly more debase purpose – shocking you into correct behavior. Wake up too late, skip working out or spend too much time on Facebook and the shocking wristband will deliver a jolt of electric current to your wrist. To avoid getting shocked, you’ll want to meet your goal, well, unless you like that sort of punishment.

Most activity trackers work on the premise that having real-time feedback of your progress – miles, steps, sleep time, and more, will motivate you to work harder and achieve your goals. That might work for most people, but for others they need a bit more motivation, say in the form of a punishment like an electric shock of 340v. The shocking Pavlok wristband was developed by Maneesh Sethi, a productivity blogger who has been known to pay people to slap him if he wastes time on social media sites. His premise – pain motivates you into action.

Pavlok works just like a normal activity tracker and counts your steps, activity, and sleep time. Synced up via Bluetooth to your smartphone app, you can check on your performance and it even alerts you via vibrations and LED lights to get moving. But if you wait to long, skip your workout, snooze too much or waste too much time on social media, the wristband zaps you. Not enough to hurt you obviously, but enough to make you think twice about hitting that snooze button again.

So far, Pavlok isn’t available for sale yet and Sethi is still working on raising funding to manufacture his device. Expect to see a crowdfunding campaign soon with an expected retail price of $250.